Quarks
by DrMeh
Summary: This war is love. [Distant Skies]


1. Up

"What's your favorite color?"

Next to him, Locus smiles, slight and gentle. Blue eyes flash, and Korona has to remind himself to breathe. "Locus."

Meca's slim fingers stop mid-flight over the keyboard; behind her, crew members exchange curious glances. She seems to be concentrating on something, but when she speaks, her voice is casual. "That's not a color, sir."

Isn't it? Locus shifts at his side, and Korona distractedly puts out a hand to stop him. "It's okay," he says, and nobody is sure whom he is speaking to.

* * *

2. Down

The subject of their childhoods comes up often. The wonders space travel has to offer are many, but far in between, and crew members invariably gravitate together for conversation to fill in the lonely blanks. Everyone agrees that a childhood in Altair is the best in the universe, that tail puns are most laborious, and that the captain is uncharacteristically closemouthed whenever the topic comes up.

Speculation abounds whenever he's not present. His youth combined with the charismatic force of his personality makes Commander Korona a favorite mystery to unravel.

The story of his favorite color is quick therefore to make its rounds through the ship's grapevine, but most dismiss it as a personal quirk. Only Meca hears the word Locus, and recognizes it as a name.

* * *

3. Strange

"Of course it's a name," Korona tells her one day when she asks. There is no glow to his eyes, only a residual shine of emotion framed with a heavy curtain of hair, blue as if painted with Altairan sea. Meca finds it disturbs her, just a little; when Korona gets like this, he seems altogether alien.

"Whose name?"

He blinks owlishly at her, and suddenly his heartbeat is pounding into his ears, pouring sound and blood into his senses. "You met him yesterday, Meca," he says, and he sounds so

_sane,_

so matter-of-fact, that Meca's breath catches high in her throat, and she knows somehow that he is telling the truth.

"Sir," she replies, "we have been travelling in deep space for the past five weeks. There are no new passengers or crew on board." Which is true, she knows, but…

"I know." He's looking past her shoulder now, and a smile suddenly breaks through the strange visage, transforms his face into a heartbreaking picture of stolen joy. The back of her neck begins to itch; her feet are frozen to the deck. Meca swears she can feel somebody behind her, as a ghost from another life.

That is true, too.

"Locus," Korona croons. "You see, Meca?"

Meca makes herself turn around. She sees only their reflections in the polished screens of the observation deck: herself, looking pale and frightened, and Korona, smiling with a pure quality to his happiness that she's never seen him with before. In the dim light of dying stars, they look like negatives of each other, as if the alien light illuminates only their alien parts.

Meca can't breathe. Next to her, Korona says something, but it is not meant for her and so she does not hear.

"Yes, sir."

* * *

4. Charm

"Locus Esa."

She looks him up, of course. Cross-referencing Korona's civilian records with the judicial database is fruitless until she extends the search off-planet, eventually revealing the case history of one Locus Esa. To her surprise, the file is not sealed.

When she sees his picture, she has to gasp. Color is all she sees: golden hair as bright as the Altairan sun, eyes as blue as the Lyran skies, and a youthful, innocent smile that makes her heart ache. Suddenly, she understands her commander's expression, alien and pure, beautiful as it is frightening.

His birth and death records are listed, too.

Tears catch themselves on her skin, and she feels them tear at her face as they fall. Compressing her lips into a thin line, Meca reads about how the young Lyran named Locus Esa was found dead in the arms of his unlikely best friend, Korona Mosel of Altair. It had been filed as a hate crime: tensions between Lyra and Altair had grown to the point of violence, unfortunately while Korona had been visiting. Locus Esa, in trying to protect his friend, was caught in the crossfire.

A vivid picture forms in the eye of her mind: the Altairan and Lyran children becoming fast friends, blissfully unaware of the rage of the political storm hovering overhead until it crashed down. The report notes clinically that Korona had been brought to court by the Esa parents, but due to his minor status, the charges were dropped upon his agreement to leave the planet.

She compares the pictures of the pale, unresponsive child to the manic, bright-eyed adult he is now: a successful, talented pilot who'd won command at an unheard-of early age. His crew is loyal to him, looks up to him, even as they are left reeling in the wake of his destructive energy and unsure of exactly why.

Meca knows why. She closes her eyes against the burn of the blue and gold, and she knows.

* * *

5. Truth

"We are at war," the crew says, excited and nervous, and everyone is too scared to ask why their commander is so silent.

Korona lifts a hand, and the flash of his iconic purple gloves quiets them immediately. He waits for a time, gathering his words to him, holding them close as if afraid to let them go. Locus moves next to him, places a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"You knew this was coming," the Lyran reminds him, and Korona's slitted eyes flicker.

"Yes," he affirms, and thin fingers tighten their grip briefly before fading away. Already, he misses him. "We are at war with Lyra."

The ship is revolving slowly in Altairan orbit; the spin of the floor makes him dizzy. A sick feeling rises suddenly from the pit of his stomach, and he clenches his fist to steady himself against the burn of nausea. He tries to think of what to do.

"Commander?" It's Meca, a solid strut of support at his elbow. He sees the anxiety in the curve of her tail and mouth, and suddenly Locus's absence is much too real.

"Continue orbit, and alert me of any new orders," he decides. "Request to be deployed immediately, vanguard if possible."

"Sir?" His officers exchange glances, thinking that maybe he's not being serious.

Is he serious? The fleet commander considers the photoreceptor-lined walls; they're dim now, waiting quietly for battle.

_This is a good ship,_

he thinks. He'd worked on Suri's design himself, born from childhood dreams with another aspiring pilot.

Locus would have been a good pilot. A good commander. Friend.

His heart is bleeding, always bleeding. He can feel it now, lifeblood pulsing as it flees the safety of the tireless muscle. Korona Mosel, however, is not his heart.

"The Lyrans will pay for their crimes," the commander offers, and if his officers sense the dark promise, they do not comment on it. At a sharp nod from Meca, the crew disperses, and Korona is left alone in the dark with nothing but memories of gold and blue (streaked with red) to keep him company.

* * *

6. Beauty

It's when he leads the Altairan fleet against the Lyran ships that Locus finally reappears. Korona has missed him, but he doesn't know how to tell him that – communication is not his area of expertise.

At this thought, Locus laughs. "Love is not war, Korona," he says, so amused as only a child can be. Korona thinks about this, tries to connect it with the mature face and heart, and finds it curiously empty.

"This love is," he says softly. The Lyran's mirth drains away instantly. Their world is suddenly quiet, hovering on the brink of something that cannot be reclaimed. A hand slips into Korona's, snug against the fabric of his gloves, and he suddenly realizes that in all those long years, Locus has always been by his side.

But never face to face.

His hands clench through empty air into fists.

_I cannot do this anymore,_

he thinks, bleak and bright. Turns, falls endlessly into eyes the color of a forbidden sky.

Locus looks younger than he'd imagined. Shorter, too. Korona looks down at himself, and realizes that he's closer to the floor than he has been in years. He grimaces, but a chuckle from his best friend distracts him. The pale, thin hand lands in his hair, ruffles it indiscriminately.

"You and your space pirate hair," Locus says affectionately.

"I was going to have the best hat," Korona replies, dazed and near to tears.

Compulsively, they hug. Korona's hands are miraculously free from their gloves as they grip the Lyran's blue jacket, and maybe it's the tears that burn as they wash the blood from his fingertips, a redemption he'd long given up hope for.

"Locus," he whispers, "what is your favorite color?"

Locus is crying, too. "Blue," he mutters back, voice muffled by Korona's shoulder. "Dark as the Altairan sea."

Somehow, they both know it's time. Korona steps back, and grins at the adult Lyran pilot smiling back at him. Sorrow aches behind his eyes and deep in his lungs, but for now he can appreciate the sight of Locus as he should've been, alive, by his side, face to face.

"I can't let you go," Korona tells him.

"You'll have to," Locus shrugs. "Someday. But maybe not today."

"Not today," he echoes.

The bridge is empty. Suri's screen flashes, showing the waves of encroaching Lyran warships. Korona tightens his gloves, and thinks of beautiful blue, dark as the sea in a storm, bright as the sky bathed in gold.

"Suri?"

"Yes, commander?"

"Open a channel with weapons bay."

Instantly, a screen switches to display his gunmen, twitching anxiously at their stations, while a glowering Meca supervises. "Meca."

"Sir," she responds immediately.

"My favorite color is blue," he claims.

She tilts her head to the side as she considers this. "Light or dark?" she finally asks, and over his shoulder, the air breathes.

"Both."

The walls exhale. In the screen, Meca hesitates, then nods.

His mouth curls.

_This war is love._

"Fire."


End file.
